Two-day in-person workshop
Two-day in-person workshop on Teaching with CI and TPRS co-created stories
Two day, in-person, live workshop on the motivational impact of teaching languages through compelling, comprehensible inputs (CI) and how to teach languages using co-created TPRS stories.
Structure:
Availability:
- The next in-person two-day workshop is offered in conjuction with Dynamic Language Learning in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
- The Amsterdam workshop will take place again on September 20-21 2025.
- Note that the 2024 was fully booked.
- If you are interested in joining, please contact info@dynamiclanguagelearning.com as soon as possible.
- Click here to avail of a special early bird discounted price.
Format and dates:
Time:
- The in-person, two-day, workshop will be delivered on site in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on:
- Saturday 20 and Sunday 21 September 2025
- The professional development training course will take place from 09:00-16:00 each day.
- The sessions will not be recorded. This is an in-person workshop so it will not be made available online.
Hello!
i’m Dr. Liam Printer
Dr. Liam Printer hosts The Motivated Classroom podcast and is currently an Instructional Coach at the International School of Lausanne in Switzerland, where he works with teachers to improve their practice. Prior to this role, Liam was the Leader of Pedagogical Innovation and Approaches to Learning at the school. Liam has been a teacher of additional languages for the past 16 years. He currently teaches Spanish and English in the middle and high school as part of the International Baccalaureate.
His Motivated Classroom podcast was listed in the Top 5% of all downloaded podcasts worldwide in 2022 with over 400,000 listens to date. His Doctorate in Education focussed on motivation and teaching languages through storytelling and using comprehensible input approaches to learnin. His research has been published in various peer reviewed journals and he also lectures on the Post-graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) course with the University of Durham and the International School of Geneva. Liam has been invited as the Keynote speaker at international language teaching conferences in the UK, Ireland, France, Australia and New Zealand and continues to work with a wide range of schools and districts around the world on raising motivation in the language classroom.
What will I be learning?
- The workshop provides an in-depth introduction to CI strategies, TPRS, teaching with co-created stories and other active learning techniques for your classroom
- Whilst the course also provides a brief overview of the theory and research behind teaching with a CI approach, it principally revolves around zero-prep, practical, classroom strategies designed to provide rich, compelling, comprehensible inputs (CI) that you can implement right away.
- We will go through some of my favourite, daily, CI activities stemming from research based evidence around intrinsic motivation and developing communication.
- A key goal of this workshop is to provide participants with strategies and approaches that will raise engagement and motivation in your classes resulting in quicker acquisition of the language through intent listening and reading.
- For parts of the day you will be ‘students’ in my class, acquiring a language naturally through the eyes of a learner using CI based approaches.
- At the end of the workshop, participants will have the tools and resources to try out the following techniques in their classrooms:
- Special person interviews
- Creating an invisible character
- Movie-Talk and Clip-Chat
- Picture-Talk
- Building a co-created TPRS story (Day Two)
What is ‘teaching with CI’?
- CI stands for ‘comprehensible input’. After over 40 years of research, it is widely accepted by language acquisition scholars that humans ‘acquire’ languages implicitly and naturally through receiving lots of rich, interesting and comprehensible inputs.
- Teaching with a CI based approach involves helping learners to acquire language naturally by listening and reading. It focuses primarily on establishing meaning rather than on grammatical accuracy and form.
- While communication and understanding is the central focus, grammar instruction is still present in the CI classroom but it is minimised as the goal is to help students to acquire the language rather than learn about the language.
- A CI approach includes lots of learner autonomy; subtly moving the focus towards the learner, their interests, their passions and helping them to communicate what they want to communicate rather than what the textbook tells us they should say.
- The CI based classroom uses research based strategies and techniques to talk with the students rather than talk at the students.
- CI based approaches have been shown in research to be highly motivating and engaging, resulting in higher retention and uptake of languages.
How is the course structured?
Day 1:
Focuses on the theory and research behind teaching with compelling, comprehensible input
- The first day will give an overview of Teaching with CI as well as an introduction to motivational strategies for the language classroom.
Day 2:
After the overview of CI and grounding in motivational strategies during day 1, day 2 focuses entirely on building a co-created TPRS story.
- Participants will be part of “my class” and will experience the magic of co-creating a story together as students.
Who is this course aimed at?
- The 2-day, in-person, live workshop with Dr. Liam Printer focuses on ‘Teaching with CI’ and aimed at both new and experienced language acquisition teachers of additional languages.
- It is principally aimed at those teachers who have heard about the Comprehensible Input (CI) approach and want to learn more and see it in action; as well as those who are new to CI or consider themselves ‘Novice CI teachers’.
- I try to ensure there is something for everyone in the course through collecting pre-course feedback and planning the sessions accordingly.
- A key focus of this workshop is giving teachers the tools to be able to provide content to learners which is both comprehensible and compelling.
CHECK OUT THIS 2-MINUTE VIDEO SUMMARY FROM THE 2024 VERSION OF THIS WORKSHOP IN AMSTERDAM:
How much does it cost?
There are separate rates depending on your circumstances:
- €390 per person [Until 31 May 2025]
- €430 per person [From 1 June 2025]
- Reduced course fees are available for people who are unemployed, in a teacher training course or who are patrons of the podcast.
What is included in the course fee?
Included in the course fee:
- Two full days of in-person, professional development workshops with Dr. Liam Printer.
- A total of 14 hours face-to-face CPD points.
- Tea and coffee on both days.
- A wine and soft drink reception after the course on Day 1.
- Lunch on both days.
- A certificate of attendance from Dynamic Language Learning, Amsterdam with hours stated for CPD points.
- Pre-course questionnaire analysis.
- Post-course e-mail support.
- Post-course Q&A video from Liam.
- All presentations, handouts and resources will be provided digitally.
5% of every booking fee goes directly towards the following environmental project:
- The Rainforest Trust environmental protection project to help save our planet from destruction.
What is not included in the course fee?
Not included in the course fee:
- Travel and accommodation costs.
- An optional dinner out on Friday night.
How do I sign-up?
- Places are limited and are allocated on a first come first served basis.
- The Amsterdam workshop in September 2025 is now available for pre-order here.
- If you are interested in joining, please contact info@dynamiclanguagelearning.com as soon as possible. We may be able to use a bigger room if there are more people who want to register.
Group bookings / Purchase orders:
- If you require a purchase order for your school or a pro-forma invoice, please contact info@dynamiclanguagelearning.com with the details required.
- Places are not secure until the payment has been made.
